Such sausage filling machines and methods are already known. With such known devices and known methods, paste filling material, for example sausage meat, is pushed into a sausage sleeve via a filling tube. The sausage sleeve is pulled onto the filling tube and is pulled off from the filling tube in a known manner by a brake ring of a skin brake and is thus kept under tension.
To manufacture single portions the filled sausage skein is divided up by displacement elements. The displacement elements can for example be displacement wings, which move towards one another in a rotational movement, so that the filled skein is divided up by the closing wings. The filled sausage skein is then conveyed further by a transport unit, such as a longitudinal unit, in the transport direction. The filled sausage skein is held by the longitudinal unit such that when the filled skin with the filling tube and the skin brake is rotated and twists with respect to the held sausage, at the place at which the paste material is displaced, a twist-off point can form and the sausage twisted off.
In this respect the following problem arises with certain types of sausage:
With frying material containing meat or rind garnishes (smaller than 2 mm), many meat or rind particles collect on the outer surface of the sausage and are then visible through the sausage sleeve. The surface of the sausage is thus uneven. With certain types of sausage, e.g. hot dog, a smooth and homogeneous external structure without visible particles is however desired. This sort of smooth external structure is provided by a film of animal protein which forms during production on the inner wall of the filling tube and when the filling is ejected, it flows underneath the sausage sleeve.
Here however there is the problem that the sausage forming in the region between the end of the filling tube and the conveyor belts is not held radially. Consequently, the flow of filling on exiting the nozzle can move due to the rotation out of the central axis. The protein film, which is formed on the inner wall of the filling tube by the friction and which should flow towards the outer side of the sausage, is therefore broken up by turbulent flows and the filling moves from the inside of the filling flow (including meat particles) towards the outside, which in turn leads to a coarse and visually inhomogeneous surface on which particles are visible.